The council that admitted it failed to prevent the murder of toddler Star Hobson has a serious staff retention problem in its children’s services, according to data uncovered by a Sky News freedom of information request.

Bradford Council spent £12.3m on agency staff in the last year – representing a doubling of its spend since the 16-month-old girl died on 22 September 2020.

It also has the highest spend in the country.

The council is almost unique in paying more for part-time replacements than the £9m it spends on permanent staff costs.

Star’s mother Frankie Smith is serving a 12-year sentence for causing or allowing her daughter’s death.

Smith’s girlfriend Savannah Brockhill was found guilty of Star’s murder and handed a life term with a minimum of 25 years in prison.

The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care criticised social workers who too often “disregarded” the views of wider family members and friends who five times expressed concerns about the child’s welfare.

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It found: “High turnover of social workers had a substantial impact on quality of practice. The social worker who made the home visit on 4 September 2020 had no previous knowledge of Star or her family. They left the service the following week (with one week’s notice) with the assessment incomplete.”

This problem has worsened since Star’s murder.

Sky News found more than 44% of their workers are from agencies.

That compares with the national average of just 15.5%. And it has a vacancy rate of over 27%, almost twice the national average.

One whistleblower who worked in children’s services in Bradford anonymously told Sky News the culture needs to change at the top.

He said: “I have concerns about the level of fear that staff have in terms of being able to openly and critically talk about some of the working conditions that they’re under and wanting to bring about real change that would make a real difference not only for staff wellbeing, but also for the work that they do.”

Read more:
After five referrals to social services, what opportunities were missed to save 16-month-old toddler?
Review into deaths of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson calls for dedicated child protection teams
The chilling parallels between the murders of Star Hobson and Arthur Labinjo-Hughes

Gladys Rhodes is an improvement adviser at the Department for Education who led Bradford children’s services for six months, but left the post over a year before Star’s murder.

She told Sky News: “I think inevitably, if you have had negative media coverage it makes it more difficult to recruit and train children’s social workers because people feel they are judged and blamed when things go wrong, but not recognised for all the good work that they do.”

Responding to Sky News’ research, she added: “I think that’s really unfortunate, because the one thing that we need to be able to give children is stability and continuity of engagement with a children’s social worker. So, the national problem that we are facing where we know we don’t have enough experienced social workers to be able to keep stability in the workplace.”

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Responding to the independent report, Janice Hawkes, the new independent chair of The Bradford Partnership, which works to safeguard children, said: “I want to say first and foremost that Star’s death in such awful circumstances should not have happened and that we are truly sorry that it did. We know agencies let Star down and we must put things right.

“The publication of this thorough and detailed independent review outlines very clearly the opportunities that we missed locally to better protect Star.

“We have already put in place steps to tackle this but we recognise that there is still work to do and as a partnership we are entirely committed to improving the safety of children across Bradford.

“The report acknowledges, as every social worker, health professional, police officer, and front-line practitioner knows, how complex and challenging working in child protection can be.

“I welcome the National Panel’s recommendations in asking that government put in place a more up-to-date approach with experts from police, health and social work in dedicated teams working together in every local area.”

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